Inferno
(Dante)

Canto I

Dante starts out in a kind of crisis. He says he’s strayed from his path, and he describes himself as walking in some kind of no-man’s land, a place of shadow and he’s just come out of what he calls a “night of sorrow”. He’s climbing a hill towards some source of light, but a leopard is blocking his path. After the leopard, he faces a lion, and then a wolf. At this point, he runs back down the hill, where he runs into a ghost. He cowers at the ghost, but when the ghost explains that he was once a poet from long ago, Dante isn’t so scared anymore.

The ghost turns out to be the Roman poet Virgil, a great influence for Dante. Virgil explains that the wolf (technically a she-wolf) will eat and rape him if he tries to pass her. But this wolf, which is corrupting Florence, will soon be beaten back by the heroic Greyhound. In the meantime, Virgil says that Dante must follow him through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.

Dante agrees, and the epic journey begins.

Canto II

Dante and Virgil have ended up talking all day. Now the sun is setting, and Dante invokes the Muses to help him through the night. Dante also asks Virgil why he was chosen for this journey. Virgil sees that Dante is very afraid, so he explains that he (Virgil) was specifically assigned to guide Dante in order to help him with his fears. He also tells Dante the story of how he came to be with him. Here is his story:

Virgil’s soul is in Limbo when a woman comes to him and asks for his assistance in helping a friend of hers. The woman, named Beatrice, says that she is doing this out of Love for Dante. Beatrice is somehow protected, so that the horrors of Hell can’t affect her, and now she’s delivering an order that has come all the way down from the Virgin Mary herself, who is very upset about Dante’s predicament. Beatrice, because she loves Dante, also wants to help him, but she can’t because she’s a woman, so she acts Virgil to help Dante

And so, here Virgil is, ready to guide Dante along on this journey. Dante is determined to stay close to Virgil, saying, in fact, that they are bound together, with a single will. And so, the two of them Dante and Virgil’s ghost, head into Hell.

Canto III

Dante and Virgil get to the Hellgate, on which there’s an inscription that says, basically, if you come in, don’t ever have any hope of coming out. The inscription also describes how Hell was made as an act of Justice and Wisdom and Love. Dante tells Virgil he doesn’t understand the inscription is trying to say, but Virgil simply tells him to be brave.

At this point, Hell seems to be a noisy place, full of strange noises, angry voices, and screaming. He asks Virgil about the screams, and the Roman poet explains that these people are those that, in life, didn’t choose either good or evil. Therefore, they are sentenced at death to go on in Limbo, a place that is neither really Heaven nor Hell. Even angels are here, those that didn’t side with either Lucifer or God in the great battle in Heaven. Virgil calls them cowardly angels. Dante asks for more explanation.

Virgil says that these sinners have no hope of anything. They envy even those in a true circle of Hell over being here in this neutral place.

Dante sees that the punishment for these neutral, cowardly souls is to be stung again and again by insects. They run around, naked, to escape, but they can’t avoid the bugs. Dante is astounded by the sheer number of souls here. He recognizes one of the people there as the one who made “the great refusal.” Scholars think this is referring to Pope Celestine V, who gave up his seat as Pope after just five months of holding the position.

There is also a huge crowd of people waiting by a large river. When Dante asks about them, Virgil tells him to be quiet and he’ll find out. The river is Acheron, one of the fiver rivers in the underworld of Greek mythology. A man with a white beard comes up to Dante and says that he can’t board the boat to cross because only the dead can cross. The man is Charon, the ferryman. Virgil insists that they be allowed across, saying that God has sent them on this journey. Charon is forced to yield, and he gives them a ride.

On the boat, Virgil explains that only true sinners cross the river to the rest of Hell. Suddenly, there is an earthquake, a tornado, and a red light! Dante loses consciousness.

Canto IV

Dante wakes up on the edge of the great dark valley. It’s so dark, he can’t see anything there, but one thing is sure—they’ve managed to cross the river Acheron. Virgil is there, saying they must continue now.

Dante notices that Virgil looks pale. Thinking this is from fear, he starts to mock his ghostly guide. Virgil explains that his complexion doesn’t come from fear, but from sympathy for those that are normally his neighbors. This circle of Hell is Virgil’s home—Limbo. Dante can hear the sinners sighing, though things don’t seem as bad as they are for the neutrals.

Those that live in this first circle of Hell are those that perhaps never learned about God or Christ. Perhaps they were born before the coming of Christ or they simply were not baptized at birth. They feel the constant ache that is the absence of God’s love for them. Dante asks if anyone can every leave this place and perhaps go to heaven. Virgil says that he himself saw that happen, when Christ came down and gathered up some of those from the Old Testament, like Noah, Moses, and Abraham, and take them up to Heaven.

A fire appears in the great valley, a glow coming from a kind of castle. There are also men there. Virgil introduces them as Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, great poets of history all. Dante is excited to be included in such a group.

Inside the castle area are gardens and courtyards, filled with great heroes of Greek and Roman history, people like Hector, Aeneas, Caesar, Socrates, and Plato. After chatting with them for a time, Dante and Virgil must move on to darker regions of Hell.

Canto V

Dante and Virgil now move on the second circle of Hell, which seems smaller than the first circle. There is a great crowd of people, and presiding over them is a bull-like judge named Minos. One by one, each person from the crowd steps forward to talk to Minos.

Virgil explains that Minos determines which circle of Hell each person must go to. They each tell their story, and Minos’ tail twists into curls. The more curls, the lower the circle of Hell (and the worse-off the person’s fate will be). Minos looks over at the two travelers, warning them to be careful who they trust. Virgil responds that they are under God’s protection, but Dante can tell the ghost is still scared.

They come now to a cliff. There is a giant whirlwind, and souls are being twirled around like helpless birds there. Virgil names some of the souls for Dante: Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Paris, Tristan, etc. These are the Lustful, the promiscuous and impulsive.

One female soul is very kind to Dante and tells her story. Her name is Francesca da Rimini, from Ravenna, Italy. He was once something like a princess, and she was forced into a political marriage to Gianciotto Malatesta. But she didn’t love Gianciotto. She fell in love with her husband’s younger brother, Paolo. She had an affair with him, only to be killed by Gianciotto when he found out. So now she is here, in the circle of the Lustful, while Gianciotto is in a deeper circle of Hell.

Dante cries at the injustice of it all and asks how it is Francesca fell in love. She says that one day she and Paolo were reading a book together, one about knight Lancelot falling love with Queen Guinevere. When, in the book, knight and queen kiss, Francesca and Paolo kissed, as well. At that point they stopped reading, distracted by each other’s passion. Paolo is here, in the whirlwind, too, and he begins to cry. Dante is so overcome by their grief that he passes out.

Canto VI

Dante wakes up and sees that he is surrounded by new suffering souls, so he must be in a new circle of Hell. In this circle, it’s always raining polluted water and hailstones, the circle dedicated to the Gluttonous. Because of the poisoned rain, the earth itself stinks, just like the water. The sinners continuously turn, trying in vain to keep some part of their bodies dry and clean. Cerberus, a three-headed dog, stands guard over the sinners. As Virgil and Dante approach, Virgil picks up a clump of mud and throws it a Cerberus, who eats it out of the air, showing just how gluttonous he, too, is.

The two travelers tour the circle. One sinner sits up from the mud and demands that Dante recognize him. The soul knows Dante is from Florence, so they must know each other.

Dante asks the man his name, as politely as he can. The soul says his name is Ciacco of Florence and that his sin is gluttony. Dante is moved to tears, and instead of asking about this man’s life, he asks about the future of Florence.

The soul, in very cryptic-prophecy language, talks about political strife between two forces. Both parties abandon reason and continue to struggle until one is banished, Dante included.

Dante mentions sever famous Florentines, asking where their souls are now. Ciacco answers that the poet will see them in other parts of Hell. Ciacco requests that Dante make him famous among the living. He then disappears into the mud. Virgil says that he will not resurface until Judgment Day.

Dante asks if the suffering of these sinners will get better or worse after Judgment Day. Virgil says that the suffering will be greater because these souls will be reunited with their bodies, and then both soul and body will suffer. They now turn and make their way down to the next circle of Hell. Along the way they meet someone named Plutus.

Canto VII

Plutus cries out to Satan, with words that no one can understand, as Dante and Virgil walk by. Even though Dante gets afraid, Virgil tells him that Plutus can’t do anything. As they pass, the demon falls down, as if lifeless.

When Plutus comes to, he compares the movement of the sinners to the waves of a whirlpool of myth. Dante sees that the sinner here are pushing heavily weighted wheels around in endless circles. The Avaricious and the Prodigal (meaning the greedy and the wasteful) are punished in this circle of Hell. When the sinners pass close to each other on their spinning wheels, they shout insults to each other. “Why do you hoard?” “Why do you squander?”

These sinners insult each other because they are so different. The greedy souls used to keep everything, hoarding like pack rats. The prodigal are reckless spenders, wasteful, and the opposite of the hoarders. So whenever they get close to each other in their endless dance of labor, they accuse the other.

Dante sees that some of the sinners have shaved heads. Wonders if they were clergy. Virgil confirms his suspicions. Dante looks through the crowd to find someone he can recognize, but Virgil explains that they are all now so filthy and dirty that their identity is hidden.

Virgil launches into this speech about how these sinners either wasted or hoarded all the Fortune given to them. Now gold cannot save them from their eternal labor. Dante interrupt Virgil with a question: what is Fortune?

Virgil explains that Fortune is God’s manager of all material things. She shifts these goods from nation to nation or from person to person, but no man and predict her movements. Men curse her, since they cannot understand her pattern, but she is deaf to their insults.

The two pilgrims move on now to a stream of black water. It leads down through some fields and drains into the swamp of Styx. This all leads the travelers to the fifth circle of Hell, where sinners viciously fight each other, rolling around in the swampy mud. Little wonder, because these sinners are the Wrathful. Virgil adds that, while the Wrathful fight eternally on top of the mud, another kind of sinner is below the sludge: the Sullen.

Because the Sullen were sullen and silent in life, they are now forced to recite hymns while buried under the mud, gurgling forever and ever.

The two travelers move on, until they find themselves at the bottom of a tower.

Canto VIII

Dante tells us now that he and is ghostly guide have been guided to this tower for a while, which is a lot like a lighthouse. When they get close, Dante sees another flame in the distance. Virgil tells him to look harder at that flame, and Dante recognizes that it’s a boat.

The boat, with Phlegyas, its boatman, stops where they are. Phlegyas has issues with the fact that Dante is still alive, but (like before with Charon) Virgil says they are on a mission from God and must be allowed to cross the muddy waters. Phlegyas agrees. When Dante gets on the boat, it sinks down a little, since the living must weigh more than the dead. As they pass, Dante looks over the side of the boat and asks one of the fighting, muddy, dirty sinners who he is. When the sinner doesn’t give a plain answer, Dante gets mad and curses the soul. When the filthy soul reaches out to Dante, he pushes it back into the muddy water.

This is a huge change in personality for Dante, who up till now has been weeping and fainting over the suffering of the sinners in Hell. Virgil reacts to this change by hugging and kissing Dante. Apparently Virgil is proud that, for the first time, Dante is righteously indignant toward these sinners to not sympathize with them.

After a moment, other sinners actually attack the one that Dante had pushed away, calling him Filippo Argenti (a famous politician from Florence who apparently had done something personally against the poet Dante). They start to tear Filippo apart, and he ends up even biting himself! Bizarre.

Next, Virgil explains that they are coming to the city of Dis. The city is enveloped in a red light, apparently from the eternal fires that burn within. Virgil makes it clear that, from here on out, things get much worse.

They arrive at the gates of the city, and there are a thousand enraged sinners trying to stop Dante from getting through, just because he’s alive. They threaten him with violence and spit on him. Things are bad until Virgil “makes a sign” to stop the sinners and starts talking to them. Dante is so distracted, he doesn’t even hear what Virgil says, but in the end, the sinners allow Virgil through to the gates, but not Dante. Virgil tries to talk to them again, but they just close the gate on him.

Virgil walks back to Dante and tells him not to worry. This has apparently happened before, and an angel is on his way to help them get through.

Canto IX

You’d think Dante would be happy an angel is stopping by, but instead he turns pale… paler than Virgil, who’s a ghost! On top of that, while Virgil tries to comfort Dante, he even starts stuttering. Dante notices that and gets even more afraid. Dante realizes the problem—he asks Virgil is anyone from Limbo (which is where Virgil is from, remember?) has even ventured this deep into Hell before. Virgil says that it has happened before, although it is rare. He explains that he once went down to the deepest parts of Hell to recover a soul for the witch Erichtho. That means Virgil has a good idea of what Hell holds.

Dante looks up at one of the Dis towers and sees something terrible—three women, covered in blood, hanging from the turrets, their hair in the form of snakes. Virgil sees what Dante is looking at and he reacts in disgust, saying that those are the Furies: Magera, Allecto, and Tisiphone. They scratch their chests with their talons and shout threats down on Dante, saying that Medusa is coming to turn him into stone. Virgil tells Dante to turn away and close his eyes. Meanwhile, Dante hears something very big coming.

Virgil tells him he can open his eyes now, and he sees the angel arriving, Heaven’s messenger, with the strength of a hurricane. Just in landing, the angel throws souls around by the thousands. He blows the gate open with a wave of his hand. With a booming voice he reproves the inhabitants of Dis for ignoring God’s will. Needless to say, Dante is awestruck.

Dante and Virgil are now free to walk into the city of Dis, a place of pain and suffering. Open tombs litter the ground, like craters, flames reaching out of each one. Sinners are inside those open grave, burning and screaming. Virgil welcomes Dante to the sixth circle of Hell, where the arch-heretics are punished. He says there are more here than Dante would think.

Canto X

As the two travelers walk through the sixth real, the city of Dis, the land of the burning Heretics, Dante asks if he can look into one of the opened burning tombs and see any of the sinners inside. He wonders if any are from Florence. Virgil says that these tombs will be open until judgment day. All the burning sinners here are those that said in life that the soul dies with the body, a teaching that goes against God’s doctrine.

They are interrupted by a voice from one of the tombs. Dante is frightened, grabbing Virgil’s sleeve. The voice says that Dante has a Tuscan accent. Virgil pushes Dante over to Farinata, a sinner coming out of one of the tombs. Farinata asks Dante who his ancestors were. Dante answers, at Virgil’s prodding, and tells him everything he wants to know. Farinate frowns at the answer. Farinata was an enemy of Dante’s family, a long time ago. Dante get’s indignant and says that at least his (Dante’s) family fought back, unlike Farinata’s. Before Farinata can reply to that, another sinner come up from the burning tomb and asks where his son is. Dante must recognize the man because, after looking him over, he answers. It seems that this sinner is Cavalcante dei Canalcanti, a political ally of Dante’s family. His son is actually a close friend of Dante’s. Dante’s answer is very ambiguous, but the father gets the idea that his son is dead, and Dante doesn’t correct him.

Farinata steps up again (well, while still being half-way inside this burning tomb) and continues his conversation. He asks why Florentines are so mean to his family. Dante cites a famous battle in history as the cause of all the strife between families and political groups, but Fainata defends himself agains Dante’s charges, saying that among the enemies of Florence, the Ghibelline party, he (Farinata) alone stood up for the city, not wanting to ransack it.

Dante completely changes the subject here, asking if it’s true that the dead can see the future but not the present. Farinata says, yes, that’s true. The souls in Hell can divine the future but they have no idea what’s happening now in the world of the living.

Apparently Dante lied to Cavalcante before. His son is not dead at all. He suddenly feels bad about that and asks Farinata to tell him that his son is still alive.

Virgil now pulls Dante away from the conversation, saying they need to keep moving. Dante has more questions about who is here in this circle, but Virgil says that all his questions will be answer later.

They turn down a foul smelling valley.

Canto XI

The valley’s horrible smell comes from more burning tombs. The travelers seem to be running from the smell, and they come to hide behind one tomb that reads “I hold Pope Anastasius.” He was the pope that denied the divinity of Christ. Virgil says they have to stay there for a moment, so their noses can get used to the stench. Dante wants to ask some more questions to bide the time. Virgil, obviously not in the mood, yields and starts explaining more about the layout of Hell.

He talks about the seventh circle, where the Violent are punished. There are three kinds of violence, Virgil explains: violence against God and nature, violence against oneself, and violence against one’s neighbor. Each of these three kinds of violence has its own sub-circle. Those who are violent against others are in the first sub-circle. Those who are suicidal are in the second. And blasphemers and usurers, who have been violent against God or nature, are in the third ring or sub-circle.

Virgil continues with his virtual tour, talking about those that live in the eighth circle of Hell, the Fraudulent. They have “cut off the bond of love that nature forges.” They are hypocrites, flatterers, sorcerers, falsifiers, simonists, thieves, barraters, panderers, and others.

In the ninth circle, those sinners are also guilty of fraud, but especially bad and treacherous fraud.

At this point Dante seems a little confused. What about all the sinners in the previous circles? Why are some punished more harshly than others?

Virgil reproves Dante for his ignorance. He reminds Dante of the book Ethics by Aristotle. In that book, there are three kinds or categories of sin—“incontinence, malice, and mad bestiality.” Incontinence is when a sinner shows lack of self control. Malice means fraud, and Bestiality refers to violence. The least offensive of these if incontinence, which is mostly what they’ve seen so far in Hell—lust, gluttony, greed, wastefulness, wrath, and so forth.

Dante asks about usury. What does it mean to be a usurer? (Those that inhabit the third sub-ring of the seventh circle are blasphemers and usurers, remember?)

Usury is lending money and then demanding exorbitant interest rates. (Being a loan shark, basically.) Virgil explains that the work a man does is part of nature and God’s will. In other words, it’s God’s purpose that we work and get paid for that work. Usurers make money without working, but by lend money and taking advantage of others. This is against the nature of God’s creation.

Virgil say that the constellations in the sky are changing (!?), meaning they must keep moving.

Canto XII

Virgil and Dante descend down a very steep dank, which is so steep that it reminds Dante of a landslide. At the bottom, they see a half-man, half-bull creature—otherwise known as the Minotaur. When the creature sees the man and the ghost, it starts to bit itself.

Virgil shouts out that Dante is not an enemy of the Minotaur, not like Theseus the “Duke of Athens.” Dante is only here to see the creature suffering. For some reason, this makes the creature angrier, because it suddenly charges at them! The travelers run away, down the embankment. At the bottom, Virgil tells Dante about a landslide that happened here. When he was descending the circles of Hell, to get a soul for the witch of Erichtho (remember, Virgil said he’d done this before), he saw Christ come down and rapture good men from the Old Testament out of Hell and up to Heaven. Virgil says that, at that point, he “though the universe felt love.” That super love force cause an earthquake.

Virgil now starts to talk about the next circle, the seventh one. To get there, they must cross the river of boiling blood, known as Phlegethon. As if things can’t get any worse, herds of Centaurs (half-man, half-horse) race up and down the banks of the river, armed with bows and arrows. They surround the travelers.

Virgil demands to talk to Chiron, the head Centaur. When Chiron arrives, he has an arrow drawn and accuses Dante of being alive. (He knows this because apparently Dante, a living soul, changes the environment around him in Hell slightly.) Virgil says that, yes, Dante is alive, that they are on a quest from God, and that they require a centaur guide to help them across the river. Oh, and Dante should be allowed to ride on that guide’s back.

Chiron selects Nessus to be the guide and bodyguard for the next leg of the journey. Nessus, by the way, was a rapist and murderer in life, the centaur who raped Hercules’ wife.

As they walk along the river’s bank, Dante sees sinners in the boiling blood, screaming. Nessus explains that these are Alexander, Dionysus, Ezzolino, and Obizzo. Virgil tells Dante to listen to Nessus, since he’s kind of an authority on this part of Hell. Later, they see another sinner, up to his neck in boiling blood. Nessus says he’s Guy de Montfort, the man that murdered Prince Henry. Apparently, Dante decides, depth of the river changes, and each sinner is put at a depth that best fits his/her sins.

They get to a part where the river is only ankle deep. This is where they cross. Nessus says that elsewhere the river gets so deep that some Tyrants of history are completely submerged, people like Attila, Pyrrhus, Sextus, Rinier of Corneto, and Rinier Pazzo.

Once they are on the other side of the river, Nessus leaves them and crosses back. Virgil and Dante continue on.

Canto XIII

While Nessus crosses the river back to his side, the two travelers continue their mission. They start exploring the woods on this side. This forest is very different from a normal one, though. The leaves are large and black, and the branches are gnarled and knotty. These trees bear poisonous briers instead of fruit. Dante recognizes these trees from famous poems of the past. They make up the home of the Harpies, ugly and stinky inverted angels.

Virgil tells Dante that they are now in the second ring of the seventh circle.

Dante starts to hear voices all around them, moaning. Dante stops and looks around searching for where the voices are coming from. Virgil tells Dante to break a branch off one of the trees; that way he’ll figure out where the voices come from.

Dante breaks a small branch nearby and the tree cries out in pain, black blood leaking from the broken part in the branch. The tree explains that it, as well as all the trees in these woods, used to be men. It asks why Dante doesn’t show any mercy at all for a former brother.

Virgil apologizes on Dante’s behalf, since he told Dante to break the branch in the first place. He also tells the tree to relate his story to Dante.

The tree tells Dante a little about himself in life. Even though he doesn’t say so explicitly, he hints that he was Pier della Vigna, counselor to Emperor Fredrick II. He was so close to the Emperor that other envied him. They even started to say horrible things about him. As a result, he committed suicide. He still worries about his fouled reputation, and he begs Dante to help him clear his name.

Dante is dumfounded, so Virgil steps up and asks how a suicide victim comes to be a tree and if he can ever be free.

Pier says that when they are judged by Minos (remember that guy over by Limbo?), the Suicidal are flung here. Wherever they land, they become saplings. They are then tortured by the Harpies, who eat their leaves (which apparently hurts a lot).

The Suicidal miss their bodies more than most, but they can’t have them back because they gave them up willingly when they killed themselves. Even in Judgment Day (remember—most sinners will be reunited with their bodies on Judgment Day) these sinners will only have their old skins flung on top of their tree-forms.

Suddenly, Dante hears a sound, and they see two naked men running from a pack of hounds. One of the men trips and falls into a thorn bush. The hounds find him and tear him to pieces. When Dante approaches, it is the bush that weeps. The bush says that he was once from Florence. He says that Florence will never have peace, since Mars, the God or War and the previous patron of Florence, will not allow it. The bush admits that he, too, committed suicide in life.

Canto XIV

Dante is so struck by the suffering bush (from the end of the previous Canto) that he gently gathers up the broken branches and puts them back into the bush. After that, Dante and Virgil move on to the third ring of the Seventh Circle, the one dedicated to the Violent against God.

This ring, or sub-circle, is a flat plain, very different from the woods of the previous ring. This plain is sandy like a desert, and there are flocks of sinners here, some lying down, others running around. Large flakes of fire, like snowflakes, fall from the sky, burning the sinners. They dance around (yes, Dante really calls it a kind of dance), trying to put out the fire. The ones on the ground are in the most pain, completely open to more burning flakes, not to mention the sand, which constantly burns from the falling flakes.

A large man nearby, is spread out on the ground, cursing God. Dante asks Virgil about him, and the giant overhears and decides to answer himself. The man says that God (which he calls Jove, a Roman god) can never take revenge against him, not matter what He throws down at him. The man is named Capaneus.

Virgil reprimand the giant and tells him that it’s his own fault that he’s here, suffering. Virgil explains to Dante that Capaneus is one of the seven kings that fought against Thebes. He also tells Dante to walk along the edge of the sand so he doesn’t burn his feet.

They continue to a little stream of red water, another version of Phlegethon. Virgil, seeing the stream, tells Dante a story. On the island of Crete, there was a mountain called Ida, where the goddess Rhea once hid her son, Jove, from his mean-spirited father, Saturn. On that same mountain was a giant statue made of fine metals like gold, silver, and iron. The statue (a man) faced Rome. But the statue was cracked up all over, and out of all the cracks flowed the statue’s tears. Those tears tickled down and formed the rivers of Hell: Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, and Cocytus (all of which we’ve seen so far, except for Cocytus, which we’ll see soon enough).

Dante wants to know how these rivers exist in Hell but they aren’t known in the land of the living (which is strange if they supposedly come from that land of the living). Virgil’s answer doesn’t make sense. Hell is round he says, so since they haven’t completed the circle of circles, they’ll still see some things that are new.

Dante also asks about another underworld river of myth: Lethe. Virgil says that river is in Purgatory. Since it’s the river of forgetfulness, it helps clear away the memories of some sinners so they can be reconditioned for life Above.

And so our heroes continue along the river bank to new territory.

Canto XV

As the two travelers walk along the banks of the river Phlegethon, a mist rises from the river’s waters to protect them from the fire that rains down from Heaven. They encounter another group of sinners that are walking along the river in the same way. They are sodomites.

Dante recognizes one of them as his mentor, Ser Brunetto Latini. Dante begs Brunetto to stop and talk with him a while, but Brunetto says that, if he stops, he’ll be forced to wait back a hundred years and burn in the fiery rain.

The riverbank spits ahead, and the sinners must take a different path from Dante and Virgil. But they continue talking, walking along two parallel paths. Brunetto asks how Dante came to be here, still alive and all, and Dante tells him his story.

Brunetto realizes that Dante is bless to take this tour while still alive, and he seems to regret not still being alive himself to support Dante. He blames some natives that were conquered by Rome for his fate, having led him down a wrong path.

Dante asks about the other sodomites in the group, but Brunetto is reluctant to give names. He only mentions a few (one of which is a Bishop), and then finds an excuse to leave.

Canto XVI

The Phlegethon falls into a new circle at this point, but Dante is now too distracted by three new arrivals, sinners running along the sand, just like the sodomites. They recognize Dante’s clothes and see that he’s from Florence, the same place they apparently are from. They introduce themselves, and Dante knows them as the Guelphs, the men that tried to convince the Florentines not to fight the Montaperti.

Dante is so interested in talking to them that he nearly decides to leave the safe path alongside the river. He settles with telling them how wonderful he feels about them and how he honors them in life. (They are some kind of heroes for Dante in recent history.)

One of the three sinners asks about Florence. How does the city fare? Dante doesn’t give a very optimistic answer, but they accept it and move on.

Alone now, Dante and Virgil get to the end of the river, which now becomes a raging waterfall. How will they get down?

Virgil asks Dante for the cord around his waist. Dante gives it to him, and Virgil forms it into a lasso and throws the loop down the ravine.

Something huge and amazing comes back up… (Literally, Dante leaves us hanging here.)

Canto XVII

Virgil calls this great beast from below. Dante describes what he sees come up. A “filthy effigy of fraud,” a creature that has the face of a man, body of a serpent, two paws, matted fur hide, and a pointed tail with a poisonous tip. Dante compares the creature to a beaver, because it puts its tail in the water like a beaver.

Virgil sees some sinners sitting on the rocks nearby. He sends Dante to talk with them. Meanwhile, Virgil’s going to negotiate a ride out of the great beast.

The sinners Dante approaches are from Florence (interesting how that happens almost everywhere he goes, right?), and he recognizes their family crests, which they have on small purses that hang around their necks. They are from families that are famous for usury (being a loan shark, remember?).

One of the usurers tells Dante to leave because he’s standing in the spot reserved for a friend that is still living. Dante compares these sinners to oxen and leaves, heading back to where Virgil is. The ghost has convinced the beast to let them ride it down to the next circle. Dante, scared but determined not to show it, climbs on.

Virgil says the monster’s name is Geryon. At that, the monster takes flight, spreading its wings. He circles downward, until they lang. Once the men are off, Geryon disappears.

Canto XVIII

The travelers have now made it to the eighth Circle of Hell, which, according to Virgil, has a nickname: Malebolge (meaning “evil pushes”). Like the Seventh, the Eighth Circle is subdivided into smaller pouches.

Virgil leads Dante around, and they see a long line of naked sinners, marching as they are whipped on each side by horned demons. Dante recognizes one of the sinners. He asks the man why he is here. The man says that he pandered (pimped) his sister into doing sexual favors for a Marquis. The man (named Venedico) defends himself, saying he’s not the only one from Bologna in this circle.

As the two travelers continue, Virgil points out one man among the marching sinners: Jason of the Argonauts. He seduced Hypsipyle of Lemnos and then abandoned her (while pregnant) in order to steal the Golden Fleece.

They now cross a bridge to the next pouch. Here, flatterers are immersed in excrement. Hew scream and fight amongst themselves. Dante recognizes one of the sinners as Alessio Interminei of Lucca. Alessio admits to being a flatterer. Virgil also points out Thais, a courtesan who overly praised her lover for sex. She’s scratching herself with fingernails that are full of excrement.

Dante and Virgil continue on their tour.

Canto XIX

Dante starts off talking about Simonists, which are clerics that sell absolution for money. Dante says they “fornicate fro gold and silver.”

This is the third pouch, where the sinners are buried upside down in rocky soil, so that only their feet stick out of the ground. While they eternally suffocate, their feet are burned with fire. Dante sees that one sinner is being burned with fire hotter than the others, so they go to that one to find out what he did. Crouching at the feet of that sinner, Dante asks about his sins in life.

The sinner mistakenly things that Dante is the next Simonist sinner that will replace him, Pope Boniface VIII. Dante corrects the man (Boniface VIII is still alive when Dante wrote this), saying who he really is. The sinner is Pop Nicholas. Dante gets angry with him, saying that his punishment is just. He even says that Rome is a whore that fornicates with kings for money. Pope Nicholas kicks his feet at this, but to no avail.

Virgil is so proud of Dante’s indignation that he picks him up and carries him to the next pouch, cradling him like a baby. They get a very steep decline, heading down into a valley.

Canto XX

As Dante looks down at the forth pouch in this Eighth Circle of Hell, he sees sinners there are walking around slowly, like in a religious ceremony. He realizes, at closer inspection, that their heads are on backwards. They cry, their tears rolling down their backs. Dante is so struck by this that he starts to cry too.

Virgil looks down on this reaction, not a supporter of compassion for the sinners. He starts to point some of the sinners out to Dante and detail their sins. These are Diviner, Astrologers, and Magicians. One of them is Mano, the hideous-looking witch that gave Virgil’s hometown of Mantua its name. She was a child in Thebes, Virgil says, but after her father died, she moved on, eventually settling in a marsh. Others came and decided to settle there, too, and Mantua was born.

Virgil goes on, at Dante’s urging to tell the names of more of the sinners here. But, since the moon is getting low on the horizon, Virgil says they need to move on.

Canto XXI

The next pouch is dedicated to the Barrators (corrupt politicians). Dante’s first impression is the darkness. Virgil yells for him to be careful. Dante turns just in time to see a black demon racing towards them in the blackness. But the demon doesn’t even acknowledge them, since he’s too busy tormenting the sinner he has flung over his shoulder, a politician from Lucca.

The demon throws the politician into a river of boiling pitch and yells for his fellow demons to help him. They crowd around, poking him with their large hooks. Virgil tells Dante to stay low so as not to be spotted by the demons.

Virgil then walks right up to the demons and demands they put their weapons down. They don’t take that command too well. They are the Malebranche (evil-claws), and their leader, Malacoda (evil-tail), walks up and asks who Virgil is and why he’s here. Virgil tells them they are on assignment from God. The demons agree not to torture Dante, so Virgil calls Dante out of his hiding spot. Dante runs up to be at Virgil’s side, and the demons joke about stabbing him with their weapons until the leader silences them.

Malacoda says that the nearest bridge is broken, but he sends a team of demons to lead the travelers to the next available bridge, as long as the keep up their duties of torturing sinners along the way. The march off, Dante scared half to death, the lead demon farting loudly to signal the beginning of the trip.

Canto XXII

Dante compares the loud fart from the previous canto to trumpets, bells, and drums. The demon guides walk with Dante and Virgil. Meanwhile, Dante scans the surface of the pitch river to see any of the sinners underneath. Backs, faces, or limbs come up every now and then, skin hoping for a moment of relief from the boiling pain. But when the demons get close, pitchforks ready to jab, they submerge again in a hurry.

One sinner stays on the surface too long and a demon snags him with his weapon. He calls the others over to help him tear the sinner to bits. Dante urges Virgil to stop the torture, so the ghost steps in and asks the sinner where he was born. The sinner answers, giving a lot more information than that. The demons stab him a few more times, but then, obviously amused, they tell Virgil to ask more questions. Virgil asks if there are any Italian sinners nearby.

The sinner (who hasn’t given his name) says that, yes, there is one, just below the pitch. He even tells the Italian’s name and volunteers to whistle for him if the demons promise to show him mercy. They agree, but, in the end, he manages to escape, diving down into the pitch. Some of the demons try and get him, but they end up stuck in the pitch, as well.

Virgil and Dante use this opportunity to slip away unnoticed, getting away from these crazy and sadistic demons.

Canto XXIII

As the two run away, Dante tells Virgil he’s afraid the demons will be angry with them for giving them the slip. He says he hears them coming and wants to hide. Virgil agrees, but as the demons get closer, Virgil realizes that won’t work. Instead, he picks Dante up and carries him, running until they get to another steep slope. Virgil slides down the slope on his rear, holding Dante like a baby. They get to the bottom just as the demons get to the top. They storm off, angry because they can’t follow into the next pouch.

This pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell (the fifth pouch, is anyone’s counting) is dedicated to the hypocrites. Dante sees a group of sinner walking with gold cloaks, the cloaks being very heavy because they’re lined with lead.

Dante is looking for someone that he knows when one of the sinners, recognizing that Dante is Tuscan, shouts at them. Two sinners are talking about Dante as he approaches. Who is he? Is he alive? Dante tells them that he is indeed alive, and he wants to know about their punishment.

They admit that they are hypocrites, and that now they must walk eternally in this heavy clothing.

Dante then notices someone is crucified, laying out on the ground, naked. The sinners explain that this is Caiaphas, the priest that had the idea to have Jesus crucified. Now he must be here on the ground, allowing everyone that passes to walk all over him.

Dante asks if there is a way out of this pouch without going back to where the angry demons are. The sinner point him in the right direction. The bridge is broken, but it’s still passable because of all the rubble built up around it. Virgil gets upset because that means that the demons lied to them earlier.

The travelers walk off, in the direction of the half-broken bridge.

Canto XXIV

Dante and Virgil arrive at the bridge and manage to cross. They have to descend and then climb the opposite bank, because most of the bridge is broken down. At one point, Dante wants to quit and rest, but Virgil strengthens him with poetic words and they make it to the other side.

Along the way, Dante starts to talk out loud, and, to his surprise, a voice answers him. They make it to the top of the opposite bank, Dante expecting to find his mystery speaker, but it’s so dark he doesn’t see anyone. They continues, and Dante suddenly sees a valley filled with swarms of coiling snakes. In amongst the snakes are trapped sinners. The snakes do cruel things to the sinners, like binding them and biting them. When a snake bites a sinner, he/she turns to ash for a moment and then reforms to do it all over again.

Dante asks a close-by sinner who he is. The sinner gives his name. Dante seems confused about this man’s sins, so the sinner says that he stole holy relics from a church. He’s a thief. In fact, this pouch is dedicated to thieves. The sinner, named Vanni Fucci, gives a prophetic message about his home town and the political strife the will happen there.

Canto XXV

When Fucci finishes the prophetic speech, he throws his fist up against God, a gesture of blasphemy. Dante grows indignant, and he even says now that the snakes are like his friends, especially the one snake that presently wraps itself around Fucci’s neck, as if to silence him. The snakes pull Fucci under the surfaces of the serpent swam.

Fucci is replaced by a centaur, who is also covered in snakes. In addition, he is being burned in the face and chest by a small dragon. Virgil explains why this centaur is getting such a wickedly horrible treatment. He is Cacus, a centaur that stole cattle from Hercules. Hercules beat Cacus to death.

As if on cue, Cacus is pulled beneath and three naked sinner appear in his place. Dante doesn’t pay much attention to them. He’s thinking about what Virgil said about Cacus. It seems the centaur received 100 blows from Hercules, even though he was dead with the first ten.

One of the sinners cries out, “Who are you?” No one answers, but the shouts gets Dante and Virgil’s attention. One of the sinners asks another about Ciafna.

At that Ciafna leaps out of the snake pit. But Ciafna isn’t another simple naked sinner—it’s a serpend with six legs, like a giant centipede. Ciafna attacks the man that called him, grabbing him and biting him in the face. Strangely, the man and Ciafna start to meld, exchanging colors and shapes. When they’ve melded, some hideous creature remains, not really man or snake but pieces of both.

Meanwhile, a snake pierces one of the other two sinners in the navel. He doesn’t seem to notice at all.

The snake-man blending continues. Something very weird happens. Ciafna and the sinner start to smoke. In the smoke, Dante can see their forms changing. Now Ciafna becomes a man and the man becomes a snake, which then slithers off.

Dante is so freaked out by this that his sight goes blurry. The two travelers move on.

Canto XXVI

Before we continue the narrative, Dante takes a moment to prophesy against Florence, saying that other towns will one day battle against his hometown.

Now Virgil and Dante continue on the next pouch. This is the eighth pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell, the land of the fraudulent counselors. The actually have to craw along steep, rocky slopes to get there.

Dante sees into the pouch and notices flames moving and dancing around. He sees that each flame contains a sinner, and then the sinner moves, the flames move, too. Virgil confirms what Dante things he’s seeing. Dante asks about a double flame, and Virgil says they’re Ulysses and Diomedes, who were responsible for the Tojan horse and the ransacking of Athena’s temple, Palladium. For this reason, their punished together in a single, double-sized flame.

Dante wants to talk to them, and Virgil agrees, but with one condition—Virgil has to do the talking. They approach the double flame, and Virgil strikes up a conversation with Ulysses. Ulysses tells of his journey home from the Trojan war. He says that he and his crew sail to the ends of the known world and beyond. Eventually, they get too far, and God kills them in a windstorm. Thus Ulysses is now here.

Canto XXVII

When Ulysses finishes, Virgil lets him leave. Immediately, another burning sinner comes up, whose voice is so distorted and full of pain, that Dante can’t understand at first. Eventually, the voice improves, and the sinner is asking if he can talk to the travelers next.

The man is Italian, and he asks is his hometown region of Romagna is at war or at peace. Dante gives the sinner the bad new—Romagna is still at war. He goes into detail about the various towns in the area. In exchange for all that information, Dante wants to know who the sinner is. The sinner starts his story.

He was a soldier at first, but he later became a friar of the Franciscan order. He repented of his sins, which included stabbing quite a few people in the back. As a friar, he is suddenly in a very hard situation. Pope Bonaface VIII is warring against quite a few Christian families, because those people question Bonaface’s legitimacy as Pope. The soldier-turned-friar is being asked by his parishioners if it is okay in God’s eyes to fight against those families and defend the Pope. Bonaface tells the friar that if he counsels the people to fight against those families, all his sins as soldier will be absolved.

The friar takes the bait and gives the people permission to fight. So when that friar dies, a demon takes his soul right out of Saint Francis’ hands and takes him to Hell. Minos judged him a false counselor, and here he is.

After hearing this, the travels leave, crossing the bridge to the next pouch.

Canto XXVIII

This is the ninth pouch, and here Dante sees so much suffering and blood that he can’t very well describe all of it. He says it like all the carnage of five different battles put together. One sinner they pass has been cut completely open. As they walk by, the sinner actually reaches up and opens himself wider, for them to see inside. The sinner says his name is Mohammed, and his friend, a sinner nearby with his face cut in half, is Ali.

They are all sowers of dissension here. This ninth pouch is dedicated to the bringers of scandal and schism.

Because all the sinners here do things that divide people, they are now all being cut in half. The sinners walk in a huge circle. When they get to a waiting demon, slices them in half. As they walk around, blood and gore falls out of their bodies. But be the time they complete the circle, they are healed, only to complete the cycle again.

Mohammed asks why Dante isn’t cut in half like everyone else. Virgil tells him that Dante is alive and that he’s touring Hell. All the sinners hear this and start paying attention, obviously interested in Dante’s unique situation. One of the sinners, a man with his throat slit like a second smile, asks Dante to carry a message back to his hometown. Dante agrees, as long as the sinner can point out another famous sinner to him.

Dante is shown Curio, a man that convinced Caesar to betray his friend Pompey and invade Rome. That invasion started a civil war, so now Curio’s tongue has been cut in half. He can’t speak anymore.

Another sinner, named Mosca, has his hands cut off. He tells of his sins. Dante says that Mosca’s treachery lead to death for his family. Mosca runs away, screaming.

Next comes Bertran the Born, the man that turned Prince Henry against his father, Kind Henry II. His head had been removed, and he carries it around like a lantern. He has to hold it up so he can speak to Dante. Because he divided father and son against each other, he now must carry his head.

Canto XXIX

After seeing all these cut-up people, Dante says his eyes are drunk with tears. Virgil tells him to man up and keep going. They have to cross this massive pouch and time is running short. Virgil keeps walking, forcing Dante to keep up. Dante really started crying when he saw a member of his own family, but Virgil tells him to keep going and forget about all that.

We learn that, while Bertran the Born was talking, Dante’s relative was standing atop the bridge, yelling curses at Dante. When he realized he was being ignored, he walked away, pouting. Dante knows this man, and feels sorry for him, because he apparently died violently in a family feud.

They make it to the bridge of the tenth pouch, the realm of the Falsifiers of Metals. Dante is impacted most by the sounds, so much so that he puts his hands over his ears.

There is screaming everywhere. Everyone here is afflicted with some horrible disease. Dante sees two sinners attacking each other with claws. Virgil walks up to them and asks them if there are any Italians around. Of course, these two men are Italian, and they want to know about Dante. Virgil gives them the same speech we probably have memorized by now: Dante is alive, and they are on a mission from God to tour Hell, etc.

Dante asks about them. One sinner says that he lied to a Bishop by telling he could make him fly. When that promise didn’t turn out possible, the Bishop got angry, started investigating the sinner, and discovered that he practiced alchemy. The sinner was burned at the stake, and Minos sent him here.

This sinner, named Griffolino, is Sienese, so Dante makes fun of Sienese people. Another sinner comes up and joins in the taunting, naming more Sienese that deserve ridicule. At the end, though, this new sinner, Capocchino, turns out to be Sienese himself!

Canto XXX

I appears the this tenth pouch is not just for makers of false gold (alchemists) but also for counterfeiters of all kinds—of persons, of coins, even of words.

Capocchino still stand before Dante and Virgil, until two more sinners, vicious in nature, attack the sinners from the last canto. One actually bites Capocchino in the neck! Griffolino, the alchemist from the last canto, says that this vicious creature is Gianni Schicchi, a man that impersonated someone else so he could “inherit” his late friend’s best horse. The other vicious, attacking sinner is a woman, named Myrrha, a princess to fell in love with her father and pretended to be someone else so she could have sex with him.

Dante sees another man that’s been twisted into the shape of a lute, and his face and skin are rotting off. This sinner calls himself Master Adam. Master Adam’s punishment is that he constantly thirsts for water. But his greatest desire is that of finding Guido II, the man that first convinced him to start counterfeiting coins.

Master Adam also introduces two more sinners nearby: Potiphar’s wife (who falsely accused Joseph of raping her) and Sinon of the Greeks (who tricked the Trojans into taking the Tojan horse into their city). Sinon strikes Master Adam in his bloated belly for talking about him. Adam attacks back with a slap in the face. Before long, the two are fighting and insulting each other.

Dante watches until Virgil comes and pulls him away. Dante apologizes for being so entertained by the insulting sinners. Virgil tells him he is forgiven.

And then they both fall asleep.

Canto XXXI

Dante spends some time talking about Virgil’s tongue, saying it has great power to hurt or to heal.

Now the travelers decide to move on the ninth and final circle of Hell, although the darkness is so thick, they can’t see where they’re going to climb that steep bank. They have to depend on their sense of hearing to get around. A deafening sound continues to echo around them, like from some kind of horn.

As they climb, Dante can make out hundreds of high towers in the distance. He wonders if it’s a city, and he asks Virgil about it. Virgil at first basically tells him to wait and see, but then he goes ahead and explains a little. He says that those aren’t towers at all, but giants that are so amazingly tall that they look like towers.

Welcome to the final circle of Hell. Dante becomes afraid, and his fear builds the closer he gets to this final realm. As he sees more of one of these giants, he sees them as hideous and supernaturally huge. They are embedded into the ground from the waist down, forced to stay in one place.

One giant babble some nonsense in Italian and Virgil silences him. The ghost explains that this giant is Nimrod, the king of Babylon, the man that masterminded the building of the tower of Babel. That is why speaking gibberish is part of Nimrod’s punishment. And, because Nimrod’s actions cause the division of all mankind, he deserves to be in this final Circle of Hell.

The next giant they see is in restraints. This, Virgil says, is Ephialtes, a man who challenged the gods and lost. Because he took up arms against gods, he is now forever restrained.

Dante asks about another giant that challenged the gods—Briareus. Virgil says they’ll see much more soon enough. Ephialtes causes a small earthquake as he tries to free himself from his bonds.

Until now, Dante and Virgil have been seeing all this from the top of the bank. Now, the travelers continue on to Antaeus, another giant, who is willing to help them get down below. He carries them down to the ground.

They are now at the ground level of the Ninth Realm.

Canto XXXII

Words fail Dante when he tries to describe the horrors of the deepest parts of Hell. He calls his language childish and small, and he invokes the Muses for help.

As Dante is lowered to the ground level of the Ninth Circle, a voice tells him to watch his step, lest he might step on the heads of his brothers. He looks down to see a frozen lake, the surface of which looking more like glass than ice. Buried in this ice up to their chins are sinners, so that only their heads clear the surface, their teeth chattering. They keep their head bent down, cursing the cold the whole time.

Dante sees two heads that are very close together, so he asks them who they are. They are so close that their hair is tangled together. They bend their necks to look up at Dante, but they have been crying and their tears have frozen their faces, their mouths stuck shut. They can’t speak; they only knock their head together.

Another sinner speaks up, identifying the sinners as the Bisezio brothers. They killed each other over politics. The speak continues to identify several more sinners down in the ice, and then he identifies himself as Comiscione dei Pazzi, a Ghibelline that killed a relative for political power.

Dante and Virgil move on. There are thousands of sinner’s heads sticking up from the ice, all around. While they are walking, Dante kicks a sinner right in the face. The sinner curses Dante, and the poet stops to clear things up.

Dante asks the man who he is, but the sinner keeps complaining instead of answering the question. He asks if Dante is alive, and Dante says that, yes, he is alive and he can make the sinner famous in the world of the living.

The sinner doesn’t care about any of that; he just wants to be left alone. Dante gets mad and starts pulling on the man’s hair, but he refuses to answer any questions. Then Dante actually does start pulling out the sinner’s hair in handfuls, the sinner screaming all the while. Finally a nearby sinner-head yell for “Bocca” to be quiet. Now that he has the sinner’s name, Dante wants to know more, but Bocca is only interested in declaring the sins of others around him.

The travelers move on, until Dante sees two sinners that are buried close together, but they are positioned in such a way that one is actually up against and eating the head of the other. Dante asks what sin they have committed to be in such a position.

Canto XXXIII

The biting sinner raises his mouth from his neighbor’s bleeding head, wipes his mouth on the same neighbor’s hair, and starts talking. His name is Count Ugolino, and his poor neighbor/snack is Archbishop Ruggieri. Ugolino says that Ruggieri tricked Ugolino and then killed him. He decides to start at the beginning.

Ugolino, as magistrate of Pisa, has to make hard decisions, including giving up some of Pisa’s fortresses to neighboring cities. Since these cities were hostile to Pisa, many thought of this as a betrayal. Because of the hot political climate, Ugolino is eventually exiled out of the city, until the Archbishop invites him back in… only to betray him.

Ugolino ends up locked in a tower with his sons. When food stops coming. Ugolino is forced to watch as his own sons die. Then, Ugolino hints to the fact that he ate his own dead children! Just telling the story drives the count crazy, so that he starts biting on his neighbor’s head again.

Datne moves on the next area. Here, the sinners are not buried in the ice. Instead, they’re laid out flat on top of it. Their tears have quick frozen over their eyes, like a visor. Even Dante feels cold and numb. But then Dante feels a wind against his skin. He asks Virgil where it came from, and Virgil says he’ll see soon enough.

Dante stops to talk to a sinner, offering to peel of his frozen tear visor if he’ll give some info about his sins. The man says that he, Fra Alberigo, had some family members over to his house, only to have them assassinated. Dante suddenly gets an idea and asks Alberigo if he’s dead yet.

Alberigo says he doesn’t know. Apparently in his region people can be dragged down to Hell even when they haven’t died yet!

Dante doesn’t believe it, until he’s shown a sinner that he knows is still alive up in the world of the living. Alberigo gives the explanation: apparently when you sin so deeply, like killing your guests, your soul is brought here while your body is inhabited by a demon up there.

Dante is so upset by these things that he refuses to clean off the ice visor from Alberigo, since he’s so corrupt that he can be sent to Hell before even dying.

Canto XXXIV

“Vexilla Regis prodeunt inferni" are the opening words of this last Canto. It’s Latin, meaning “the banner of the King of Hell draw near.”

Virgil is the one that spoke these words. He then tells Dante to be on the lookout for Lucifer himself. Dante looks hard and sees what he first thinks is a windmill in the distance.

As they continue walking, Dante sees that the sinners here are completely submerged in ice, their strangely positioned forms visible beneath the glassy surface. There is also a strong wind all around.

Now Dante sees that Lucifer, who is bigger than any of the giants. He is huge and hideous, so much so that Dante wonders how he could have been beautiful ever.

Lucifer has three heads—a red one, a yellow one, and a black one. Each head has it’s own powerful wings, which are collectively causing the powerful wind. Lucifer is crying out of all six eyes (two for each head). In each of his three mouths, Lucifer has a sinner: Judas (who betrayed Jesus), and Brutus and Cassius (who betrayed Caesar).

Virgil says that the tour is finally over; it’s time to leave. To get out of here, Dante climbs up on Virgil’s back. Virgil then starts climbing on Lucifer’s legs. When they pass his privates, Virgil puts Dante down for a minute. When Dante looks around, everything is upside down! Virgil takes Dante down (up?) and then explains. When they passed Lucifer’s privates, gravity reversed itself. They are now under Jerusalem, where Christ died.

Apparently, now they are in the southern hemisphere, which is mainly water because, when Lucifer was cast down to Hell, he fell by way of the southern hemisphere.

Dante realizes they in a cave, the river Lethe is nearby. They come out to see the stars in the sky.

They are out of Hell, and the journey is over. And with that, the story is Inferno is over.